After peripherals, it's Alpha for Samsung in India

Asim Raina

NEW DELHI: After gaining a substantial market as well as mind share of the peripherals market in India, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. -- the Korean conglomerate -- is all set to do the same for Alpha processors as well as motherboards. As a first step, a series of road shows are being conducted in Delhi and Bangalore. At these road shows, the company demonstrated the unrivaled performance of Tru64 and Linux applications on the UP2000 and DP 264 platforms using the third generation Alpha CPU (21264A) and gave a presentation of Alpha Linux clustering technology.

Developed by Digital Equipment Corp, Samsung acquired the license to produce and market the Alpha processor in 1996. Accordingly, it started mass-producing these processors in 1996. After that, the company acquired SOI (Silicon On Insulator) and copper chip processing technology two years later. At its height, Samsung became the first company in the industry to complete a 1 GHz prototype CPU in May 1999. To strengthen the global marketing and sales of its microprocessors, Samsung established a subsidiary called Alpha Processor Inc (API) in Boston, Massachusetts in June 1998. This company specializes in the development and promotion of the Alpha CPU and related platforms.

According to Dr KP Suh, Senior VP & GM (CPU Division - System LSI Business), Samsung Electronics, Samsung and API have decided to officially promote the Alpha CPU in India to develop rich opportunities in high-performance technical computers as modern industry increasingly requires performance to execute complex computing rapidly. "The Alpha CPU outperforms the competition when processing moving pictures or scientific computations with a 64 bit processing speed, while other microprocessors operate at 32 bits."

Talking about India, Dr Suh said that Samsung and API plan to recruit system OEM partners as well ISVs and IHVs in the Indian advanced software and high-tech industries. "Looking at the significant market potential in the Indian HPTC market, we would like to build close relationships with OEMs, end-users and solution providers," he added. He also revealed that Compaq would be introducing Alpha 1 GHz-based system in the second quarter of this fiscal. And in the third quarter, Samsung plans to unveil Alpha 1.25 GHz processor.

Talking about the competition from AMD and Intel, Dr Suh admitted that AMD's Athlon chip is very good. However, he added, in terms of performance, Alpha is far superior to all the other chips. "Alpha is the only commercially available 64 bit architecture and I strongly believe that it is the Alpha CPU which can provide the solutions to today's high performance computing needs."